Spotify may gain Siri voice commands soon, despite antitrust battle

Posted:
in macOS edited December 2019
Spotify subscribers may soon be able to play their music via Siri voice commands, thanks to a set of tools released by Apple in June.

Spotify may soon get Siri voice controls


The battle between Apple and Spotify had kicked off in March when Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission. The complaint accused Apple of anti-competitive practices by not allowing third-party access to technologies such as Siri, HomePod and Apple Watch.

Originally, SiriKit had only allowed six categories of apps to work with Siri. These apps had to fall under the umbrella of messaging, internet voice calling, ride booking, photo search, workouts, or payments. In comparison, both Google Assistant and Alexa allowed users to play music from rival services, including Spotify.

In 2018, Apple created a tool that would allow iPhone users to create a Siri shortcut to play music through Spotify, but many thought the feature was somewhat cumbersome.

However, Apple announced a set of tools in June that give the makers of podcast, radio, and streaming music apps, the ability to utilize Siri voice commands. This would enable a user to play music on Spotify via Siri, though Apple Music will still remain the default music service on all Apple devices.

Spotify has long claimed that Apple treats it -- and other -- third party companies unfairly. According to The Information, Spotify used to host a message on their site that read "Apple won't allow us to be on HomePod and they definitely won't let us connect with Siri to play your jams."

The message has since been replaced with "Only recently, Apple announced that it will let us connect with Siri to play your jams...but fails to mention our name (I want to play [X] on Spotify') and your HomePod will default to Apple Music."

Apple, however, claims that Spotify was using misleading rhetoric to paint Apple in a bad light to disguise its financial motivations. Spotify claimed to have no official comment at this specific time.

A statement released by Apple said that they had reached out to Spotify about supporting Siri and AirPlay 2 on multiple occasions, saying that they were ready to help Spotify where they could, only to be told that Spotify was "working on it."

Even if this particular battle comes to a close, the war between the two companies is not likely to come to an end. Spotify has argued that Apple's 15 to 30 percent commission from subscription sign-ups through iPhone apps create an unfair advantage for Apple Music.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    AppleExposedAppleExposed Posts: 1,805unconfirmed, member
    More free stuff for Spotify. They'll keep complaining.
    StrangeDayslolliverbshankwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 11
    I want Spotify to enable offline and/or streaming with the Apple Watch. I hate Apple Music but continue to use it so I can listen to music via my Watch.
  • Reply 3 of 11
    I want Spotify to enable offline and/or streaming with the Apple Watch. I hate Apple Music but continue to use it so I can listen to music via my Watch.
    Huh? Subscribing to Apple Music is not a requirement of listening to music via Apple Watch.
    Rayz2016lolliverbshankwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 11
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,453member
    I'm looking forward to this, not for Spotify, but for TuneIn Radio which I use every day to listen to the news. I have a Shortcut to tell Siri to "Play TuneIn" which will play the last station I had it on, but I think it's limited to just that and can't, say, change stations if I were to say "Play NPR on TuneIn" etc. I think these changes in iOS 13 will remove those limitations, if I understand correctly.

    lolliverwatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 11
    I'm looking forward to this, not for Spotify, but for TuneIn Radio which I use every day to listen to the news. I have a Shortcut to tell Siri to "Play TuneIn" which will play the last station I had it on, but I think it's limited to just that and can't, say, change stations if I were to say "Play NPR on TuneIn" etc. I think these changes in iOS 13 will remove those limitations, if I understand correctly.

    Is it possible to use Shortcuts to set up a phrase for a specific station on TuneIn? I get that would potentially be a pain to do for every station you may want to listen to but it might work. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 11
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,453member
    I'm looking forward to this, not for Spotify, but for TuneIn Radio which I use every day to listen to the news. I have a Shortcut to tell Siri to "Play TuneIn" which will play the last station I had it on, but I think it's limited to just that and can't, say, change stations if I were to say "Play NPR on TuneIn" etc. I think these changes in iOS 13 will remove those limitations, if I understand correctly.

    Is it possible to use Shortcuts to set up a phrase for a specific station on TuneIn? I get that would potentially be a pain to do for every station you may want to listen to but it might work. 
    No, that's what I'm saying — you can launch/play, but you can't control anything else within the app. That's the limitation that I think is being lifted in iOS 13.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 11
    Right on, Spotify! This is going to be interesting, and much more convenient for music lovers.
  • Reply 8 of 11
    I like this development, I have Apple Music but I'm not happy with it. I like to be able to search for playlists and subscribe when they have songs I like and I can do that with Spotify. I like the Siri integration and that's the only reason I subscribed to AM. It's good to have choices.
    caladanian
  • Reply 9 of 11
    Arina14 said:
    Right on, Spotify! This is going to be interesting, and much more convenient for music lovers.
    Don’t you mean “Right on, Apple!”?

    FTA: “Spotify subscribers may soon be able to play their music via Siri voice commands, thanks to a set of tools released by Apple in June.

    I’m pretty sure Spotify wasn’t contributing to the tools.
    uraharabshankwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 11

    "Spotify may gain Siri voice commands soon, despite antitrust battle" should read... "thanks to antitrust battle".  :)


    In any case, good news for everybody. I am an Apple fanboy but I love Spotify. I wasn't able to buy a HomePod just because of its lacking of Spotify support (I went with Sonos instead).

    And above all, I think it is the right thing for Apple to do, be a good sport and let Siri play Spotify and other music providers too.





  • Reply 11 of 11
    bshankbshank Posts: 257member

    "Spotify may gain Siri voice commands soon, despite antitrust battle" should read... "thanks to antitrust battle".  :)


    In any case, good news for everybody. I am an Apple fanboy but I love Spotify. I wasn't able to buy a HomePod just because of its lacking of Spotify support (I went with Sonos instead).

    And above all, I think it is the right thing for Apple to do, be a good sport and let Siri play Spotify and other music providers too.





    Apple slowly roles out these tools over time. This was happening DESPITE the antitrust concerns. Ultimately Spotify doesn’t want to pay anything for the work Apple does to create these tools or host one of if not the largest software platform in the world.
    watto_cobra
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